Confidentiality is imperative to the development of trust between all clinical practitioners and their patients. It is vital that patients can expect information about their health to be kept confidential, unless there are compelling reasons that it should not be. The public have strong interest in confidentiality, which encourages individuals who need treatment, to disclose important relevant information. In order for you to develop clinical skills during this programme, you will need to access confidential information about patients, as you have been doing during your professional registration as an eyecare practitioner. We must pont out that this duty of confidentiality extends to you as trainee advanced clinical practitioners. In all teaching sessions involving patients, shadowing medical practitioners or where you gain access to confidential information in other ways during your teaching, confidentiality applies.
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Safeguarding is the means by which we protect all individuals' health, wellbeing and human rights. The aim of safeguarding is that all individuals are enabled to live free from harm, abuse and neglect and as such, it is imperative to high-quality health care. As you will know, as already experienced eyecare practitioners; safeguarding children, young people and adults, is a collective responsibility.
Those most in need of protection include (but are not limited to): children and young people; and adults at risk, e.g. those receiving care in their own home, people with physical, sensory and mental impairments, and those with learning disabilities. As tACPs and NHS staff, we have a responsibility to safeguard children and adults at risk of abuse or neglect.
As part of this programme, it is a mandatory component that you complete the Unit entitled "Child abuse and the eye" which is found on the ACP paediatric ophthalmology Blackboard organisation. The exercises for this unit of learning must be completed and upload as well as your individual reflections and comments on the collective group piece on this. The unit will refamiliarise and refresh you with the signs of child abuse that can be detected within an eye appointment and what to do, should you discover any.
We acknowledge that as a purely paediatric programme, your main learning for safeguarding should be focused on children. Yet, we know that during the transition period when children begin to move to an adult setting (age 16-19 years) and in your daily working, you may come across other situations where safeguarding concerns are raised for adults. The British Medical Association (BMA) has some excellent resources for safeguarding adults, including a helpful toolkit, which you can access here:
https://www.bma.org.uk/advice-and-support/ethics/safeguarding/adult-safeguarding-toolkit
Students are reminded that as clinical practitioners within the NHS, we must reflect the six values of the NHS Constitution, and by living these values we can ensure the best possible care for patients. The values are:
If, during your work-based learning, you become concerned about potential risks to patients or staff, you should bring these to the attention of your line manager and local mentor, in the first instance. All students are required, under the Health and Safety at Work Act (1974), to report hazards of which they become aware. We would also like you to report these concerns to the programme lead Charlotte Codina (c.codina@sheffield.ac.uk), with cc. to your personal tutor. A member of the academic team will then contact your clinical team to discuss what actions are appropriate and if no action is put into place, these are then escalated accordingly (local mentor handbook)
It's important to remember that all patients have access to the patient advice and liaison service https://www.nhs.uk/nhs-services/hospitals/what-is-pals-patient-advice-and-liaison-service/ within their own NHS trust, and you can direct patients to share their concerns as and when required, with this service.